Keeping Warm
by JustSaraNoH
Summary: Clint remembers the first time he had to spend a Christmas with Coulson, and how his new handler helped him battle some inner demons.


**NOTES:** This is another prompt I filled for the Feelstide fest over on AO3. My prompt this time was "keeping warm". Obviously, I got very creative with the title of this story.

I own nothing, and this is just for fun. Please don't sue.

* * *

Clint backed away from the fireplace in their quarters once the flames were strong enough to hold. He stood for a moment and watched the wood turn orange and crumble into ash while soaking in the heat.

"You're going to start sweating if you stay there," Phil remarked from the spot he'd settled into on the couch when they'd returned from Christmas festivities in Tony's penthouse to their personal floor of Stark Tower five minutes prior.

Clint shrugged in response. "Better than freezing."

"We've been inside all day. What risk have you had of developing frostbite in the last twelve hours?"

Clint sighed as he turned and sunk down on the couch next to Phil. "I just like staying warm," he said in a soft voice. He didn't have to look to his left and see Phil's face to recognize the expression that would be there. He knew it would be the one of regret and patience. Regret for Phil being unable to correct the wrongs in Clint's life from his youth, and patience if this turned out to be one of the few times Clint felt like discussing those memories. But tonight would not be one of those nights. It was Christmas, and Clint didn't want to ruin it by drudging up past pains. Other memories, though, that would be okay. "Remember our first Christmas together?"

"I thought this was our first Christmas together. Unless you've been dating me longer than I realized," Phil answered as he stretched his legs out and rested his feet on the coffee table.

Clint rolled his eyes and he slid and twisted his body on the couch so that his head came to rest in Phil's lap. "I make no apologies for what happens to my brain when I encounter a head injury or the good pain meds, but no that wasn't what I meant."

"Krakow?"

"Krakow."

"You were pissed the entire time," Phil remembered with a slight chuckle.

"I was not."

* * *

He really was.

And the worst part was Clint didn't know why he was so pissed off. He'd volunteered for the mission. It was his second Christmas with SHIELD, and he'd been with the organization for a little over a year. He didn't have any family to speak of really, and going out on an op beat sitting in his tiny apartment alone.

What he didn't want was his handler coming with him. Up until then the new guy, Coulson, had been the best agent he'd worked with. Coulson let Clint run his mouth on comms and make his own judgment calls. He somehow managed to reign Clint in while maintaining a looser hold than anyone else before.

Clint had volunteered to do a recon mission without discussing it with Coulson first, which it turned out was something his handler didn't appreciate too much.

"It's just recon," Clint argued. "I'm not going to be shooting at anything. We're not trying to stop a war. There aren't any bombs that are going to go off. I'm just going to watch a guy have a meeting and then I'll come back home."

"You still have to run this by me," Coulson had said in his quiet and deadly tone that Clint had only heard a few times before but knew he should be terrified of.

Clint muttered an apology and left Coulson's office to grab his gear. He hadn't told Coulson because his handler had been prepping for the last three weeks to make sure he could go home and visit family for the holidays. He'd never been obvious about his actions around Clint, but Barton was able to put two and two together.

Maybe that's why Clint was upset. It was a mixture of Coulson feeling like he needed to repress his actions regarding his family around Barton as well as Clint now being the reason why his handler wouldn't be with them on the holidays.

Clint had tried to apologize on the plane ride over, saying he didn't know that when he volunteered it would cause Coulson to have to come for the ride, too, but Coulson waved him off. "I was in the military for years. In fact, my family doesn't know I've been discharged. This isn't the first Christmas I've missed."

"Still doesn't make it okay," Clint had muttered in return. He had—for the most part—matured out of longing for what society saw as a "normal" Christmas. That was something he hadn't had since he was a kid, and even then it was probably a stretch, so he felt enormously guilty for being the one depriving Coulson of his family time. So yes, that's probably what put him in his foul mood; not that the op did anything to help bring him out of it.

Poland was freezing, more so than its normal winter and naturally the intel they were working off of was shaky at best. It took three nights in a row of Clint perched on a nearby rooftop with a parabolic dish and weather-rated recording equipment before the people they were waiting for finally decided to meet, and on the night it finally happened they spent the first six hours of the meeting talking about food. Clint hoped the recording device didn't pick up the sounds of his growling stomach.

By the end of the third night, and consequently then end of the active portion of the op, Clint was chilled to his bones and exhausted. And to make matters worse, SHIELD let them know they were concerned that their safehouse had been compromised. Thus the two men had to be moved to a motel that offered a dirty room that contained a bed barely large enough to contain both men if they slept on their sides. And even that was doubtful.

They two made it to their so-called accommodations and made sure their equipment was sealed up tight and ready to go for their extraction in the morning. Coulson began to change out his get up for the op where he'd spent the last few days living on a street corner as a bum. Clint didn't believe the straight laced, suit-loving handler would be able to fit in, but Barton also shouldn't have been surprised that Coulson performed his portion of the op perfectly. The handler had been positioned outside the building where the two heavy hitters were to meet as back up, and there had been a couple of times where Clint would do a visual sweep of his surroundings and Coulson had barely registered as a blip on his radar. Maybe that was because the other man was a professional at blending into the background. Or maybe it was indicator of just how much Clint already trusted him. He shook his head at the thought of that.

The biting air that hit Clint's chest as he too began to change out of his clothes into the spare outfit he'd packed sunk his mood even further. He'd hoped that since they were inside it would feel something close to warm, but he wasn't so lucky. The motel was old and drafty; the wind caused the small window to constantly rattle. The change into a clean pair of clothes didn't help, and Clint felt his teeth begin to chatter.

"You okay?" Coulson asked, concern evident on his face.

"Fine. Just cold."

"You can sleep first, if you want. You've been up for three days."

"So have you."

Coulson shrugged. "I had a couple people take pity on the bum and give me coffee; I'm fine. Get some rest."

Clint wanted to argue but his weariness won out. He climbed into the bed with a request to be awoken in four hours so he could take over for Coulson. But even with the exhaustion he felt, sleep would not come. He curled up in a ball as tight as he could, but could not stop his teeth from chattering. The coldness kept him awake.

"Barton?" Clint knew that tone—Coulson was giving him a warning. He could come clean on his own on what was happening or the handler was going to order it out of him. But Clint didn't answer fast enough. "Talk to me."

Clint felt his breath go at the order. Already those three words were able to pry his tongue frighteningly loose. "I hate being cold." He waited for Coulson to snark back some response about sucking it up or a reminder that they're in Poland and not Thailand, but none come. Instead Clint heard the rustle of fabric and a second later his handler draped his own coat over him. Coulson then stepped back and resumed his post near the door. Granted, it was no more than two feet away, but Clint was grateful for the space.

Clint tried to still himself and sleep, but he couldn't—too many memories of being cold growing up crept up on him. They had a habit of doing that from time to time, but when they did Clint was usually in a place where he could deal with it by himself and not less than a yard away from a man he was actually trying to earn some respect from.

His mind, which was apparently in a cruel mood that night, forced him to relive memory after memory of being cold. The times when his father drank away the money to pay for heat and he and Barney had to share a bed under a pile of blankets to stay warm. The many nights he spent on the road with the circus where shelter was a piece of canvas and nothing more. Being cold was a reminder of what he didn't have: a loving family, stability, a warm place to call home.

His body stilled when Coulson started to talk. His handler began to tell him stories of his time in Iraq; he described the heat and how much he would sweat under his body armor. He talked about what it felt like to have the sun beating down on you day after day. And Clint became entranced. He focused all his attention on the words coming out of Coulson's mouth. He imagined what it would feel like to experience the things he's describing. And soon the soft tone of his handler and the images his words spun acted like a lullaby and pulled Clint into a deep sleep.

The archer came back to consciousness with a hand gently jostling his arm and his name quietly filling the small room. He checked his watch and was glad to see that Coulson honored his request of only letting his sleep a few hours so they can trade positions. "Thank you," he said, and neither acknowledged that the words weren't referring to waking up Clint. Barton pulled off Coulson's coat and handed it back to the man who tried to wave it off. "I'm good now," Clint insisted and the handler took the garment back with a slight nod.

* * *

Six years later, Clint thought about how life actually, truly was good now. He soaked in the heat around him—fire on one side of his face and the warmth from Phil's body on the other—and finally, just a little, accepted the fact that he was warm and had celebrated his first decent Christmas in years, if not ever. His heart swelled at what all that meant to him after the life he's led.

"Ready for bed?" Phil asked quietly while running his fingers through Clint's hair.

"Five more minutes."


End file.
